New era for leisure

A new not-for-profit company takes over the management of North East Lincolnshire Council’s leisure services from Monday 1 April.]

Lincs Inspire Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary company of North East Lincolnshire Council, will take over services currently run by SLM (Sport, Leisure Management Limited) from Easter Monday.

This includes all the council’s swimming pools, leisure centres and the King George V athletics stadium.

To assist with the handover arrangements, the leisure centres and swimming pools will close earlier than usual on Sunday 31 March and open at the later time of 10am on Monday 1 April. King George V athletics stadium is not open on Sunday or Monday.

Lincs Inspire’s website, www.lincsinpsire.com, will go live on Monday 1 April when SLM’s Everyone Active website will no longer cover North East Lincolnshire classes and activities that are booked seven days in advance.

Lincs Inspire’s online booking service will be available from Sunday 7 April for classes and activities after 14 April. Classes and activities between 1 April and 14 April need to be booked directly with reception staff at the building where they take place.

Lincs Inspire Ltd will run the council’s leisure facilities under a social enterprise model of management and will take over the management of other council leisure, sport, tourism and cultural services on a phased basis.

Approximately 400 staff currently employed by SLM will transfer into Lincs Inspire Ltd on 1 April 2013, with staff who are employed by the council expected to follow at a later date.

Councillor Mick Burnett, portfolio holder for tourism and culture at NELC, said: “This is an exciting development for the borough and the hundreds of thousands of people who enjoy the excellent leisure facilities we have in this area.”

Lincs Inspire general manager Craig Morgan added: “We're very much looking forward to delivering leisure services for the people of North East Lincolnshire. However, whilst the services won't fundamentally change in the centres, we're installing a variety of new IT systems to manage the services and we would appreciate our customers' patience with them during the first few days while we train our new colleagues and settle the new systems into operation.”